Once upon a time we had a poetry thread, but I've lost it. And sometimes I feel like writing a piece of silly doggerel. Possibly you do too. So I'll start.

Good Clean Fun(with apologies to WS Gilbert)

There once was a little Venusian queenOh tell me a good sci-fi story!Who landed her spacecraft on our village greenOh tell me a good sci-fi story!And she asked me why authors of modern renownAll wrote about folk from the wrong side of townIn erotic potboilers that they can't put down!Oh tell me a good sci-fi story!

I said if you really desire a good bookOh tell me a good sci-fi story!You'd better not judge them by how covers lookOh tell me a good sci-fi story!Though their heroines may be all scantily-cladThough their back-jacket blurbs may be wickedly badTheir repetitive content will just drive you mad!Oh tell me a good sci-fi story!

Now in stories which are of the space-opera kindOh tell me a good sci-fi story!There are lashings of danger and sinister mindsOh tell me a good sci-fi story!But I'm glad to relate after everything's saidThough there may be some schmaltz when the two heroes wedThat the bulk of the action won't take place in bed!Oh tell me a good sci-fi story!

When I consider how I spend my timeSubmitting stories to some great slush pile,Where often the first readers aren't sublime Or even competent to stop and think awhile,Where diligent adherence to assessment schemesResults in declarations that my genius does not fitAnd pours cold water over all my fondest dreamsBefore they've time to read more than a page of it,Then, then, methinks no justice dwellsIn any publisher's cold, stony heart,No future ages shall my awesome words retellOr on a marble pedestal set them apart.And yet - undaunted, here I am anewSending my treasured work, Dear Editor, to you.

WARNING - if you are a Corbynista you may find this song offensive. If you never heard of the man you may find it unintelligible. (Tune - The Ovaltinis)

JC Clings on - Obliviously

We are the Corbynistas,Jezza's girls and boys,We wake each morning straight and gay To play at politics and say -Would you like to spit at Tories?Won't you join our joys?At understanding we're not goodWe think that history is dudBecause our heads are made of woodWe're Jezza's girls and boys!

They are the filthy ToriesThink they're born to rule!They'd like to starve us all to deathWe'll curse them with our dying breath -Oh, just because they went to EtonThey take us for fools!The truth is we're ex-Eton tooBut that don't mean we're not like youWe're upper class but we're not blueWe're Jezza's girls and boys!

There on the ballot paperWe will put our markAt Christmastime we choose JCWe know that's how it's meant to be -Ah, hark how the nation listensTo our frenzied barkThey voted Brexit, and what's moreWhen Jeremy sat on the floorThey knew what empty seats were for -Unlike Jezza's girls and boys!

We may not get elected,May not have a clue,We think all politics a gameBut we press onward just the same -Ha! Do you think that our Momentum'sReally something new?We're ancient Marxists from the ArkDas Kapital is such a larkBut real life? Nah, we're in the dark!We're Jezza's girls and boys!

Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of the opposition in the UK parliament (i.e. he is in theory the alternative to the present prime minister). He has a policy of resetting the national clock to 1980. This is sad because there are some sensible people in his party who could give the government a much needed credible debate (and to give them credit are actually trying to do so even in present circumstances.)

Every now and again I tell my wife I could make a political comeback (and she tells me I wouldn't last a week.) However things have changed so much since I stood for parliament I think I should need to seek the nomination of the None of The Above Party!

PS. JC sat on the floor of a train to make the point that it was full = inadequate service. Sadly the train company then released CCTV footage of him walking through an almost empty carriage to get to a full bit.

He sounds like a character and in today's world that seems to sell better than substance . It's the fourth turning, if you subscribe to that theory, which means things are coming to a head (just like in the Great Depression/WWII which was the last fourth turning).

Friends of Martin on Facebook may know he tends to write by means of dictation while driving. Recently he noted an unfortunate incident where twenty minutes' work was lost when he didn't realize the recorder hadn't started. A bit like Coleridge who lost a great part of his major work 'Kubla Khan' when interrupted by 'a person from Porlock.' Okay, something similar has happened to all of us. The satirical poet among us could not resist.

YESWE KHAN

In Xanadu did Martin LA twenty-minute piece dictateWhere words, the product of his brainJust tumbled out as right as rainAll down the interstate.

So twice two thousand phrases fairHe spouted to uncaring airOnly to find when he got thereTechnology on which he'd trustedHad failed to work 'cos it was busted.

I've been taking an interest in Rattle's weekly 'Poets Respond' feature, for poetry about current news. I doubt if poetry from an idiosyncratic UK perspective will suit their audience, even were it not for my seldom writing blank verse* and never writing free verse**, two features of my work that make it as unfashionable as it's possible to be.

However, should anyone have an esoteric interest in the sonnet*** format you might like to know that I've attempted two such in the last couple of weeks and these can be seen on the poetry page of my blog (see below).

A while ago I undertook to try and explain what little I know about poetry to those who might be interested, so here's a glossary of technical terms used above.

Blank verse - doesn't rhymeFree verse - doesn't rhyme or scan (i.e. is not written in a traditional rhythm.) Also known (by me) as badly punctuated prose.Sonnet - 14 lines with rhymes on alternate lines for the first 12 lines then finishing with a rhyming couplet

Ishmael wrote:I've been taking an interest in Rattle's weekly 'Poets Respond' feature, for poetry about current news. I doubt if poetry from an idiosyncratic UK perspective will suit their audience, even were it not for my seldom writing blank verse* and never writing free verse**, two features of my work that make it as unfashionable as it's possible to be.

However, should anyone have an esoteric interest in the sonnet*** format you might like to know that I've attempted two such in the last couple of weeks and these can be seen on the poetry page of my blog (see below).

A while ago I undertook to try and explain what little I know about poetry to those who might be interested, so here's a glossary of technical terms used above.

Blank verse - doesn't rhymeFree verse - doesn't rhyme or scan (i.e. is not written in a traditional rhythm.) Also known (by me) as badly punctuated prose.Sonnet - 14 lines with rhymes on alternate lines for the first 12 lines then finishing with a rhyming couplet

Well done. I actually enjoy sonnets, both writing and reading. Looks like you employed the rarely used iambic heptameter form.

Thanks. Iambic heptameters are probably too wordy for most people's tastes, but they do therefore provide something unusual. The only poem of mine to win a competition prize in modern times was actually written in iambic pentameters. Right now that's in Rattle's long term slush pile.

I am hoping to find the US markets (possibly chimerical) that are alleged still to publish traditional ballad-form poetry. I've given up hope of ever finding this in the UK.

Once upon a time I attended a shipboard lecture on the subject of the sonnet as a poetic form. (It wasn't even a particularly esoteric cruise, surprisingly.) I've had a sneaking fancy for sonnet-writing ever since. Mind you we must be rarities because I've no recollection of seeing a new one published in decades.

Once I was a ponderific manubewho never quixuned but slovened unherband bood. The flitizens forblamed, "The Doob!"whilst plaincozing the conflazenous flerbwhose oozenous afloze they sunderberkedand lobed twoward my tuberlone and proneproze. Oh, 'twas dirksome. Oh, how thure I zerked.But somebling stumbling stunward came. I flone,"This is!" Maybe, maybe not. Until woomand woof can interfly then I will whyaway the zymic pyme. 'Tis all a moomcan. Do you, oh my nover, everply?

For woom and woof, unfrazened as they blam,koop me a manube who forblames, "I am."

You might have thought he would have learned before,Obama, when he cast the Brexit runes,Telling the British how they should vote forEurope, not go off whistling their own tunes.Well, his advice did not go down so well;“You know what?” says we. “Do give it a rest!We don't know much but one thing we can tellIs when some foreign bloke tells us what's bestFor us, we growl, “Go take a running jump!”But no! He's back to tell the French to voteFor Macron, who was winning but now slumps.So listen over there and please take note:If you think we should move, cry out “Stand still!”Lo and behold, you might just find we will.

Ishmael wrote:Once upon a time we had a poetry thread, but I've lost it. And sometimes I feel like writing a piece of silly doggerel. Possibly you do too. So I'll start.

Good Clean Fun(with apologies to WS Gilbert)

There once was a little Venusian queenOh tell me a good sci-fi story!Who landed her spacecraft on our village greenOh tell me a good sci-fi story!And she asked me why authors of modern renownAll wrote about folk from the wrong side of townIn erotic potboilers that they can't put down!Oh tell me a good sci-fi story!

I said if you really desire a good bookOh tell me a good sci-fi story!You'd better not judge them by how covers lookOh tell me a good sci-fi story!Though their heroines may be all scantily-cladThough their back-jacket blurbs may be wickedly badTheir repetitive content will just drive you mad!Oh tell me a good sci-fi story!

Now in stories which are of the space-opera kindOh tell me a good sci-fi story!There are lashings of danger and sinister mindsOh tell me a good sci-fi story!But I'm glad to relate after everything's saidThough there may be some schmaltz when the two heroes wedThat the bulk of the action won't take place in bed!Oh tell me a good sci-fi story!

Woke up one morning with this little ditty going through my head. No idea where it came from in the night, but I'm picturing some future antagonist whistling the tune as he makes his way over people's rooftops and down into their homes. Sincere apologies to Mr. Dick Van Dyke...

morganb wrote:Woke up one morning with this little ditty going through my head. No idea where it came from in the night, but I'm picturing some future antagonist whistling the tune as he makes his way over people's rooftops and down into their homes. Sincere apologies to Mr. Dick Van Dyke...